Evidence questions ‘common sense’ about memory in child abuse cases

Monday 24 Jul 2017

A Charles Sturt University (CSU) legal expert and her team
have shown the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual
Abuse that some views used to discredit victims of child abuse are not supported
by current scientific evidence.

"We identified several common misconceptions about memory
and compared these views with the opinions of memory experts and professionals working
in the justice sector, including police, lawyers and judges," said Professor
Jane Goodman-Delahunty from CSU's Faculty of Business, Justice and Behavioural Sciences.

"A number of misconceptions
about memory have been adopted by the sector, and normal memory functions and normal
memory errors are routinely and unfairly used to discredit victims and cast
doubt on all their testimony," Professor Goodman-Delahunty said.

"Examples include errors in recalling minor peripheral details,
poor memory for details of recurring events, and recalling more information
after an initial police interview."

The report provides a foundation for expert witness
education for juries, and guidance and training for legal professionals, police
and judges who work with victims of child sexual abuse.

"We developed straightforward guidelines that summarise the key
research findings about memory performance in witness statements. These may
assist professionals in the criminal justice sector who work with vulnerable
witnesses such as children and adult victims of child sexual abuse," Professor Goodman-Delahunty
said.

"Most importantly,
the guidelines can help juries in assessing the memories of vulnerable
witnesses in cases in which there is no corroborating evidence."

Highlights from the guidelines include that:

Memory is dynamic and reconstructed; it is not an exact replica of an event.

Memories are sensitive to retrieval cues and are not recalled the same way every time.

Memories of traumatic events are often more fragmentary than those of non-traumatic events.

Self-contradictions and minor inconsistencies are hallmarks of normal memory.

"We hope our report will assist criminal justice professionals
to discern what victims of child sexual abuse can reasonably be expected to
remember and to better identify indicators of reliable and unreliable
information," Professor Goodman-Delahunty said.